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The 12 Minute Challenge: Penne alla Vodka

This delicious meal of penne alla vodka and spinach salad with caesar-ish dressing, pecorino cheese and proscuitto can be made in 12 minutes.

Can a post describing it be written in 12 minutes? It’s 10:06. Let’s go!

You know what night it is: American Idol night. I actually became angry at the judges when they were so harsh to Jason Castro. I officially have a problem.

Vodka sauce is a simple, smooth tomato sauce enriched with cream and spiced up with red pepper flakes. If you’re listening to me as closely as you should be, you are now keeping bottled tomato puree in your pantry for quick sauces. You may even have half a bottle left over from something else you’ve made. That half a bottle will produce a quick, delicious sauce for 4.*

It starts, as most good things do, with onions + garlic + olive oil + heat. Some crushed red pepper comes to the party – I have some habanero flakes, so I used a tiny pinch of those – along with the tomato puree and a third of a cup of heavy cream (another substance found in most good things). The sauce simmers while you cook the pasta and throw the salad together, with the vodka added at the last minute.

10:12!

*4 normal people, 6 people who actually eat the recommended serving size of pasta, 2 people like me, or 1 Brian.

Prosciutto: The King of Pork

The salad was a total accident born of my failure to pay attention to any details whatsoever of the caesar dressing recipe I glanced at. (For example, had I actually read it through I would have realized that I didn’t actually have half the ingredients in the house. Go me.) The dressing is basically a lemon and olive oil base with some finely minced garlic and anchovy paste mixed in.

I decided to top the spinach with cheese and proscuitto because (1) the cheese is traditional to caesar, so at least I got something right, (2) proscuitto is delicious, (3) I can justify it by telling myself that the meal needed “protein”, and (4) it’s pork and cheese, do I seriously need a reason? Get off my back, harpies.

10:15.

In the meantime, my pasta water hit a boil and I dumped in a hefty amount of salt and some artisinal penne; I also poured some vodka into my simmering sauce and lit it to produce a truly pathetic flame that did not reach above the lip of the saucepan. I drained the penne 2 minutes before the recommended cooking time and finished it right in the vodka sauce, which really allowed the flavor to penetrate the pasta. I plated things up all pretty-like and dinner was served.

And it was good. The sauce was creamy, quite spicy but with a sweet tomato kick. The sauce clung needily to the roughly textured artisinal pasta. The lemony dressing was great with some baby spinach, and the prosciutto added some nice salt and chew along with its miraculous sweetness.

Heat the olive oil in a medium-sized saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and saute for 4-5 minutes, until it begins to turn translucent; add the garlic and red pepper flakes and cook a few minutes more. Stir in the tomatoes and cream and a pinch of salt and bring to a simmer.

Leave simmering while you cook the pasta. Just before you’re ready to use it, adjust the salt and pepper levels. Add the vodka; flaming isn’t necessary, but you can do it if you’d like.

I’m guessing yum-o is some kind of RR vernacular, right? She doesn’t seem to have much of a presence here in NZ…which is good because her rubbery face freaks me out a little. Anyway back to what I was originally going to say which was that I LOVE Penne alla Vodka, so simple but so good, and yours looks amazing, as does the salad. Seriously delicious…

Good Gawd, girl! 12 minutes? I might love you. I will, of course, have to quadruple the recipe for my ginormous family…or do I just quadruple the vodka? What? Nothing wrong with a little nip while we’re cooking! lol 😉 🙂

You can only say Yum-O if you’re wearing pants that are 2 sizes too small, and you’re carrying a carload of ingredients in one arm and a “garbage bowl” in the other. (WHY on earth dirty another bowl? Use the freaking trash can!) Since I see no proof of you doing that, you are damn lucky you crossed out the Yum-O.

Yay! I love vodka sauce!! My favourite is with rigatoni, though- this restaurant back home made THE most kick ass rigatoni vodka and I still crave it.

American Idol pisses me off. It’s good that he was voted off, though, because it’s obvious they didn’t want him on anymore since it was The David Show, so he might as well go home to his friends and family and be able to start recording his own stuff. Bastards.

I just don’t get prociutto – or any salt-cured pork. Maybe I haven’t had a good one… Give me smoke-cured pork anytime though.

Incidentally, I’m very impressed at you pulling this together in 12 minutes. What size are those penne? The penne we buy take 13 minutes to cook to al dente. And that’s AFTER the water has come to a boil.

(I’m sorry to see that you felt you had to cave and cross out the “Yum O” when it was so clearly a joke.)

What’s the meaning of this?

Once upon a time, I wrote this food blog. It was a pretty great blog, if I do say so myself. I don't write it any more, but all the recipes and hijinx remain available for your cooking and reading pleasure.